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Badger cull "Way behind target"

Fewer than 100 badgers were culled in the first ten days of the six-week cull in Somerset, which began on 26 August and will run to 6 October, it has emerged.

The toll is well below the minimum target of 2,081 badgers that need to be killed during the course of the trial. It represents less than 20 per cent of the 500 badgers that needed to have been culled in the first ten days to put the operation on track to hit its target.

“I understand the West Somerset badger cull may be failing to meet its own target, despite [Secretary of State] Owen Paterson’s assurances that the operation is proceeding according to plan,” Derek Mead, an entrepreneur dairy farmer from Weston-super-Mare, told The Western Morning News in Somerset.

“The information I have been given suggests that as at the middle of last week, the number of badgers accounted for was still well below 100,” he added.

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Until the end of the pilot, no one will know whether it's either humane or efficient.

Taking pot shots at a subterranean, nocturnal group animal in a prescribed period (42 nights) and trying to account for 70 per cent of 75 percent of summat, was always a big ask. But if it proves unworkable which is likely, then we have an opportunity to look at other methods of control.

Mead's comments are premature. He may be repeating planted gossip and appears to be more interested in taking pot shots at the NFU than joining together in a united front against TB, from farmers and vets. Who needs enemies?
All this sprang from Thursdays Western Morning News front page story..

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Not easy, have to think Badger for every question. Take the cull away and where are we ?

We are here.
A lot of brutal and suicidal cattle measures, with which you will have agreed.
Don't fill this thing in on line. Send a short one by mail.

Some of our blog contributors and Ali Driver (FG) were at these meetings re the current consultation. It was very difficult to get the facilitators to even mention the 'B' word. See our take, on this post:

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Can I just ask, why is there a target for a number killed in a specific time, on what research information was it set and which "muppet" felt there was a need for a target?

I believe it is to do with minimising the effect of perturbation. If a lower percentage were killed over a longer time frame then the risk of dispersing infected badgers and potentially making things worse increases.

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

That figure was complete nonsense, i was speaking to the knacker man who has the contract of collecting the badgers and delivering them to defra, he said he picked up 96 after 2 days

Very interesting.

That would be near to the required target of 50 per day, and acceptable for the first couple of days given that you could make allowances for the marksmen getting used to the job in hand, they ought to improve a little as time goes on and they gain experience.

We discussed at some length on the old forum whether the cull would be workable from a practical perspective and many people including me had reservations about the practicalities of shooting large numbers of badgers in a short time window, not least of all, as the expert says in the WMN link, once you've shot one the rest will not hang around for long.

At best, this type of strategy can only be an interim measure, though I do think that if it did deliver the required population reduction, and the key word there is if, then it could make a significant contribution to TB control, more than the predicted 16% improvement which is based on a half hearted cage trapping attempt. Success with this strategy would give a mandate to press on with a more workable strategy such as a cull targeted via PCR tests.

There are however a lot of things built into the protocol of the current culling trials that make it seem like they are setup to fail from the outset. We'll just have to hope for the best and see what happens, if it fails to deliver though i can't see us getting another crack at the problem any time soon.

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

That figure was complete nonsense, i was speaking to the knacker man who has the contract of collecting the badgers and delivering them to defra, he said he picked up 96 after 2 days

The first rule of PR is to get your story in first, irrespective of the truth as that is the one that will stick in people's minds.

there is one very good piece of news coming out of the culling trials,
that is that there is very little public hostility to this shooting, despite all the heart rendering tripe in the news.
it seems the general public can see the sense of doing anything within reason to control TB

Looking in as an outsider with no livestock now, my own experience was going TB free as a county some 50 years ago, so probably I should not really comment, however;

It has got to be haphazard, shooting SOME badgers. Badgers are not as daft as humans!

Maybe vaccination of cows might work over a number of years, just let the badgers continue to die horrible deaths.

I appreciate politicians will not grasp the nettle, but should it not be put on record to a monumental scale to the politicians that a half hearted, lily livered approach will not solve the problem, it will condemn both cows and badgers to another 20 years of suffering.

Surely the answer is to test every badger sett for TB, gas 100% of those affected, and a very rigid testing and movement control of cattle.

Then we might get back to the days of 50 years ago, when we were TB free and badgers were not protected,

Jack Caley

I am 79 years old, I cannot see an end to this rubbish in my lifetime.

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Looking in as an outsider with no livestock now, my own experience was going TB free as a county some 50 years ago, so probably I should not really comment, however;

It has got to be haphazard, shooting SOME badgers. Badgers are not as daft as humans!

Maybe vaccination of cows might work over a number of years, just let the badgers continue to die horrible deaths.

I appreciate politicians will not grasp the nettle, but should it not be put on record to a monumental scale to the politicians that a half hearted, lily livered approach will not solve the problem, it will condemn both cows and badgers to another 20 years of suffering.

Surely the answer is to test every badger sett for TB, gas 100% of those affected, and a very rigid testing and movement control of cattle.

Then we might get back to the days of 50 years ago, when we were TB free and badgers were not protected,

Jack Caley

I am 79 years old, I cannot see an end to this rubbish in my lifetime.

Jack, the problem is that you applied logic and common sense to a subject that no-one with any influence would ever be interested in using!

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Apparently apart from UK it's only Holland that protects badgers, with all that waste wild landscape there must be dozens of them , Germany kills 50k badgers per year , on average, have done for 10 years so pretty stable population.
Time for some European harmonisation I think.
Be very careful what you say here, the Badgerapologists are checking these forums , they will try and bring prosecution against anyone they can pin something on!!

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Originally Posted by Hurdlebunter

Apparently apart from UK it's only Holland that protects badgers, with all that waste wild landscape there must be dozens of them , Germany kills 50k badgers per year , on average, have done for 10 years so pretty stable population.
Time for some European harmonisation I think.
Be very careful what you say here, the Badgerapologists are checking these forums , they will try and bring prosecution against anyone they can pin something on!!

Was out the other night for pigs. Was a guest to hunt pigs so thought pigs only... The 2 other guys were shooting plenty and I saw no pigs. Thought they had plenty and I was just in the wrong place. Had only seen 6 badgers, 9 roe deer, a couple fallow deer, and some fox. They saw no pigs and were shooting badger. 6 of them and all but 2 had sores of some type...

Be your self and speak your mind. Them that matter won't mind and the others don't matter

Re: Badger cull "Way behind target"

Adoption of all-round, badger inclusive, TB control policy in NI gains momentum Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister has pledged that a new strategic partnership to eradicate tuberculosis from cattle will be in place by the end of the year. Michelle O’Neil, who has described more effective TB controls as a key priority, said the programme would incorporate biosecurity, new compensation procedures, improvements in farmer/vet communication and also directly address problems created by diseased badgers.
It is hoped that the new strategy will be running at full bore by this time next year.
She reported that test and vaccinate or remove (TVR) research projects focused on badgers have made good progress and were helping to show how effective TVR could be as a method of disease control in the future.
If the business case for TVR is approved, and both licences and funding can be secured TVR fieldwork, which would see badgers found to be diseased being removed, could begin in mid-2014.